Confessions

So, I was at my chiropractor's the other day, and she was trying to make me feel better about having been irritable with my kids.  She says to me, "We all have mommy moments.  Last night I bit my daughter's elbow."  What?!  My first response was, "How dysregulated do you have to be to bite your child. . . on the elbow?"  Then she tells me, "That was going to be the last time she stuck her elbow in my mouth!" 
Apparently, when her daughter has a bad dream, she comes into her parent's bed in the middle of the night, and has a habit of jamming her elbow in her mother's face.  At this point I'm thinking, "Oh, well of course.  Perfectly understandable." 

After laughing all the way home, I started thinking about my own, "mommy moments."  This sobered me up in a hurry.  Unfortunately, I have way too many examples of times I've botched it as a parent.  The definite low point so far (as I'm sure there will be more!), is the time I locked my four year old in the garage.  On purpose.  Now that is dysregulated!  It still brings me to tears to think of his terrified little voice crying out for me to let him come back in the house.  We had been going at it so badly, him screaming and tantruming, and me finally yelling, that I literally feared I might hurt him.  Locking him in the garage was the only thing that I could think of in the moment.  Before you call social services, let me assure you that I called for help right away.  My mom came over, my son survived, and it has never happened again. 

There is obviously a long story leading up to, and following, this event, but the point right now is that we all have moments of failure.  As parents, there are few things we want more than to feel like we're doing a good job raising our kids.  And sadly, if we are honest, there are often few things about which we feel so woefully inadequate.  This can make us pretty tight-lipped about our failures, and pretty defensive when anyone dares suggest there might, perhaps, be a better alternative than yelling at your child in the middle of the shoe department.  "I know that already!  Of course a 'good' parent never yells at their kids!  Can't you see I've completely lost it, here?!"  Yelling, biting, shaming, slapping, belittling, abandoning, you name it, we "all fall short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23). 

Parenting is a full-time job with 24-hour on-call demands.  No one is perfect.  Thank goodness for the context of the above verse in Romans 3.  Though we all sin (and few are more acquainted with their own sin more than a parent, because your children will tell you about it if nothing else!), God has provided a way out.  We are "justified freely by [God's] grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus" (vs. 24).  Does this mean we get to keep on being bad parents?  "Not at all!" (vs. 31).  It means we do our best, ask God and our children for forgiveness when we fail, and know that God's love will see us through (1 John 1:9). 

I don't want any of us to ever feel so riddled with shame and guilt that we cannot ask for help!  No matter what you have done, you are not alone.  The Bible has never been an advocate for rugged individualism.  We are encouraged to look to our Heavenly Father, as well as one another, for support.  If you are struggling as a parent, feeling guilty and alone, please know that help is available.  Talk to a friend or pastor, visit the Family Restorations website, or attend a parent support group.  Our children need us to keep trying, in spite of our mistakes.  These very mistakes are opportunities for us to illustrate the reality of the gospel of Christ at work.  My children already know when I ask them, "Who is the only perfect parent?" the answer, "God is!"